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Telling the Time
Clocks and watches are very important for all of us. We all need to tell the time. Many years ago, there
were no clocks. In Valletta a gun was fired at sunrise at noon and at sunset. This served to regulate the
daily pace of life within Valletta and its immediate surroundings. In the other villages the passage of time
was announced by church-bells.
In ancient times people had to guess the time by looking up to see where the sun was. If the sun was in the
east, they knew it was still morning. If it was high up in the sky, it must be near midday. If the sun was in
the west, it must be in the afternoon. This was a very rough and ready way to tell the time. It would not be
accurate enough for us today.
Many people in the olden days noticed that the sun made shadows. In the early morning, a tall tree had a
long shadow, which pointed west. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the shadow became shorter. Then, in
the afternoon, the shadow moved around to the other side of the
tree, and pointed east. Gradually it became longer, as the sun set in
the west.
Over 4000 years ago, the people of Babylon worked out a clever
way to use these changes in shadows to help them tell the time.
They made a sundial. .
Sundials had a stick or pointer that made a shadow. They also had
a dial, or set of numbers which were used to tell the time. When
the sun shone on the pointer, it cast a shadow on the dial of num-
A sundial showing that it is nearly
three in the afternoon
bers. In the early morning, the shadow points to 5 or 6 a.m. At sunset it would point to 6 or 7 p.m. When the sun shone overhead, the
shadow pointed to 12.
However, there were times when sundials were not very helpful.
How could they tell the time when the sun did not shine - on
cloudy/rainy days, or at night?
Several other methods of telling the time were in common use before the modern clock was invented. The ancient Egyptians developed a water clock. This device consisted of two cans, placed one
on top of the other. The top can was full of water, and it had a tiny
An Egyptian waterclock
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hole in the bottom. The water leaked through this hole at a
steady rate, and fell into the empty can below. The Egyptians
were able to estimate how long it took for the water in the top
can to run into the bottom one. They made marks on the cans
by means of which they could read the time.
The water clock was a great improvement on the sundial, and
the principle of it was copied in the sand glass. Instead of water, sand was used. This container had two parts with a narrow
neck between them, through which the sand could pass, very
slowly. Such a device is still often used in today’s kitchens as
an egg timer, to tell when an egg has been boiling for 3 minutes.
A burning candle can be used in the same way. It is possible to
put marks in the side of the candle, at regular intervals, and to
number them. Those notches will indicate how much time has
A waterclock as known by the Greeks and
the Romans
elapsed since the candle was first lit, and the wax started to
melt.
None of these systems was perfect. Most were not precise
enough, and others were clumsy to operate, and not easily
moved about. So the search for an efficient, accurate, mobile
clock went on.
Better progress was made in the development of a modern
A candle with notches to mark the time
clock with the invention of the coiled spring in the 15th Century A.D. This was a spring that unwound very slowly, at a
constant rate. It was linked up to a small drive wheel which was
able to turn the hands of the clock face, as we know it.
An hourglass
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24 pounder cannon
This is a gun which fires a shot weighing 24 pounds. Thus a gun which fires a shot weighing 32 pounds is
known as a 32 pdr. A pound is a unit which measures weight. One pound is equal to 450 grammes. A 24
pound shell weighs 24 pds x 450g = 9800g [9 kg 800 g]
Smooth Bore refers to the hollow part inside the barrel which is smooth. A rifled gun would have lines or
grooves.
A solid roundshot
A section of gun barrel
showing rifling
A cannon mounted on a truck
carriage. The wheels on the carriage
are known as trucks
A 24 pdr cannon was a smoothbore mounted on a truck carriage. A truck carriage was made of wood, but
on land peace-time carriages were made of iron. In times of war the iron carriages were changed for
wooden. Wood was preferred because of its strength, durability and resistance to shock. The trucks were
small, solid wood or iron wheels. A charge of gun powder for maximum range was 4 kg.
Its point-blank, no elevation range was 297 yards and its extreme range at 10º elevation was 2,870 yards.
Because accuracy dropped off very quickly as elevation increased, an elevation greater than 4º was rare in
naval actions.
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Parts of a cannon
The main parts of the cannon were the breech, which ended in a rounded iron ball called the knob or button, the trunnions that were the heavy iron extended arms that supported the cannon in balance in its carriage, and the bore into which the powder and ball would be loaded. When resting on the trunnion, the cannon would tilt toward the breech. It was kept at the desired elevation by a coin that was a wood or iron
wedge placed on the bed of the carriage. By moving the wedge, the cannon’s elevation was set.
A) Knob
G) Muzzle
B) Neck
H) Rimbase
C) Vent
I) Cascable
D) Trunnions
J) Breech
E) Muzzle Swell
K) Chamber
F) Muzzle Face
L) Bore
•
Cannon - The term cannon embraces all kinds of heavy ordnance, Guns, Howitzers, and Mortar.
•
Barrel -
•
Breech - The mass of solid metal between the bottom of the bore and the cascable
•
Cascable - The large knob shaped projection at the back of the tube.
•
Muzzle - The front opening of the tube.
•
Trunnions - The projecting cylinders at the sides of the tube which support it on its carriage.
•
Vent - The long hole at the back of the bore through which fire travels to the power charge.
The interior hollow cylinder, which receives the charge.
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Loading and firing a cannon
The 24 pdr could be fired by a crew of four men, but then the rate of fire would be quite low. A normal
gun-crew for this cannon was from six to nine men. Each man of the gun crew was known by numbers to
make orders easier in the noise of battle e.g. Number 1 was the Gun Captain who aimed and fired the gun.
Number 2 loaded the gun with powder and shot; Number 3 sponged out the gun, ensuring that no burning
powder or waste was left to cause premature ignition of the new charge, and rammed the shot and powder
home.
24
Loading the Cannon
Number 3 would sponge out the cannon to remove any burning fragments of powder cartridge left in the
barrel. Number 2 would insert the cartridge. Number 3 rammed a wad of rope yarn into the cannon to hold
the cartridge in place. Shot was passed along the left side of the cannon from Number 4 to Number 2 who
dropped it into the cannon. Number 3 then rammed the shot down the cannon with a wad on top of it.
Firing the Cannon
Everyone stepped back. The gun captain moved up to the cannon. He inserted his priming iron and thrust
down the touchhole to cut through the cartridge. He next opened his priming box and took out a quickmatch. The quick-match was covered with a highly flammable material and was inserted into the touchhole
down into the cartridge. If no quick-match was available, the gun captain primed the cannon from a powder
horn pouring fine gunpowder down the touchhole and along a channel cut in the cannon. A slow burning
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Loading and firing a cannon
match was used to fire the cannon. This was
held in a forked staff to hold the match. The
gun captain applied the match to the powder
and moved back very quickly. This process
was repeated over and over, often with the
crew taking casualties and suffering from exhaustion from the hard work.
Powder horn
Priming iron
Cartridge carrier
Sponge
Rammer
Worm
Two types of portfire used to
carry the slow-burning
match
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Gunpowder
Gunpowder is an explosive substance that is sometimes referred to as black powder. This was used in order
to fire cannon and other firearms. It is believed that gunpowder was first discovered in China.
"Black" powder (which was sometimes brown) is a mixture of about 75 parts saltpeter (potassium nitrate),
15 parts charcoal, and 10 parts sulphur by weight. These three substances are ground into a fine powder
and mixed together. The mixture was then formed into cakes which were then taken to corning mills in order to break them to the desired size. It was "corned" in fine grains for small arms and coarse for cannon.
When it burns, it liberates smoky gases (mainly nitrogen and carbon dioxide) that occupy some 300 times
as much space as the powder itself.
A standard charge of gunpowder was normally 2/3 the weight of the shot. By the 1800s this had dropped to
1/3 or ¼ of the weight of the shot.
Because it is an explosive gun powder has to be protected from fire and accidental sparks. If gun powder
gets wet e.g. in the rain, it does not ignite. To keep it in good condition and avoid accidents gun powder
was kept in purposely-built gunpowder stores. A gun-powder store is normally called a magazine.
Magazines were designed to be bomb-proof and to keep the gun powder dry. Many times magazines had a
raised floor covered with wood in order to cut of damp rising from the ground. The walls also had slits in
them in order to allow ventilation.
Barrels of gunpowder stored in a magazine
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Cannon shot
The gun could be loaded with a variety of shot - from the plain cannon ball to bar shot, chain shot and
grape shot. Bar and Chain shot whirled around in flight and was intended to cut through enemy ship
rigging, bringing down masts, sails and spars and disabling the ship. Grape shot was an anti-personnel
weapon, firing a quantity of smaller balls in a cluster. These spread out and created a murderous hail of
metal.
A bombshell was simply a hollow, cast-iron
sphere. It had a single hole where the powder was
funneled in. A fuze was then driven in. The fuze
burned when the shell was fired from the gun.
After a set time the fuze burned up and the bomb
exploded.
In the year 1672 there appeared an iron shell
called a carcass. It was filled with pitch and other
materials that burned at intense heat for about 8
minutes. The flame escaped through vents, three
to five in number, around the fuze hole of the
shell.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Carcass
Chain shot
Bar-shot
Expnding bar-shot
Grape-shot
Case-shot
Explosive shell
Solid shot
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Development
of artillery
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Development of Artillery
The first form of primitive cannon had a narrow neck and a flared mouth, and fired an iron arrow. A redhot bar thrust through a vent ignited the charge. The range was about 700 yards. The bottle shape of the
weapon perhaps suggested the name pot de fer (iron jug) given to early cannon.
A medieval picture showing a
pot de fer being fired
During the Hundred Years' War (1339-1453) cannon came into general use. Those early pieces were very
small, made of iron or cast bronze. They were laid directly on the ground, with muzzles elevated by
mounding up the earth. Being cumbrous and inefficient, they played little part in battle, but were quite
useful in a siege.
An early form of bombard. Note
how the barrel is made up of
strips of iron which are kept together by means of metal hoops
By the middle 1400's the small sized cannon had grown in size into enormous bombards. Some of the most
formidable bombards were those of the Turks, who used exceptionally large cast-bronze guns at the siege
of Constantinople in 1453. One of these monsters weighed 19 tons and hurled a 600-pound stone seven
times a day. It took some 60 oxen and 200 men to move this piece, and the difficulty of transporting such
heavy ordnance greatly reduced its usefulness. Large bombards were also used by the Turks during the
Great Siege of Malta of 1565.
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Development of Artillery
At the beginning of the 1400's cast-iron balls had made an appearance. This together with an improvement
in gunpowder, further encouraged the building of smaller and stronger guns. Iron cannon were steadily
developed along with bronze guns, some of which were beautifully ornamented. The casting of trunnions
on the gun made elevation and transportation easier, and the cumbrous beds of the early days gave way to
artillery carriages with trails and wheels.
An early form of cannon and
carriage
The cannon of the late 1600's was an ornate masterpiece of the foundryman's art, covered with floral relief,
scrolls, and heavy moldings. By 1750; however, design and construction were fairly well standardized
resulting in a gun of much cleaner lines than the cannon of 1650.
An ornate bronze gun of the early
1700s
In the 1700's cast-iron guns became the principal artillery on ships and ashore, yet bronze was superior in
withstanding the stresses of firing. Because of its toughness, less metal was needed in a bronze gun than in
a cast-iron one, so in spite of the fact that bronze is about 20 percent heavier than iron, the bronze piece
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Development of Artillery
was usually the lighter of the two.
In 1740, a new technique of gun manufacture was introduced in Switzerland. Instead of hollow casting
(that is, forming the bore by casting the gun around a core), guns were cast solid, then the bore was drilled.
This improving the uniformity of the bore.
A machine used for boring the barrel of the gun
In the early 1800's guns had improved so as to be able to fire a shot of up to 68 pounds a distance of 2500
yards at a rate of one shot per minute. The Napoleonic and Crimean Wars plus the threats of invasion in the
mid 19th century and the development of iron clad ships spurred massive developments in gun
manufacture.
The first of two significant improvements was the rifled muzzle loading (RML) gun. This was still loaded
down the barrel, but the grooved barrel gave the gun more power and accuracy.
The inside of a rifled barrel. The
grooves made the shell spin
which gave it more speed and
accuracy
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Development of Artillery
The other development was the use of rifled breech loading (BL) where the shell was introduced at the
back of the gun rather than down the barrel. This allowed for much faster rates of fire. Breech loading guns
had been introduced in the 1850's but were unreliable with a tendency to explode unexpectedly. Towards
the end of the 19th century these problems had been sorted and a wide range of BL guns were introduced.
At this period of time another new type of gun, Quick Firing, was introduced. These fired much smaller
shells at 3 to 6 pounds, but had a range of 4 to 5 miles and could fire at 20 shells a minute.
An early breech loading gun
of the 1860s
A quick firing gun in action
during the First World War
1914-1918
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